


zero sum game

by vype



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Ambiguous Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Cyberpunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vype/pseuds/vype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chrom is a robot. Robin is an A.I.<br/>Together they fight <strike>crime</strike> destiny.</p><p>Maybe they win.</p>
            </blockquote>





	zero sum game

———

Their father– and they say father for Lissa’s sake, because there is almost nothing that Chrom and Emm won’t do for Lissa- is based on a prince, a warlord of old who conquered foreign enemies and generally was an awesome hero. The kind of person you’d hear about in a documentary or museum exhibit, or so Stahl tells him; Chrom has never had much experience with those kinds of things. Chrom doesn’t mind that, and in fact he thinks that’s pretty cool, but they released his model with lasers mounted on shoulder pads and knives in place of fingernails, electric death crammed into every possible space. No wonder he’d been unpopular with the public. What was Ylisse Inc. expecting, releasing a death machine like him into a society who thought themselves too sophisticated for violence? If they thought financial ruin, they’d be right.

So Emmeryn was released to the public in a rush, and they completely overhauled her designs and functions to appease public sentiment. There were a few bugs in the system- occasionally some problems with fritzy memory circuits. When your protocol is murder everything’s easy to program, but if it’s along the lines of be nice, be likeable, be friendly? Slightly more challenging to do without any hiccups. 

Most of the population had lost faith in Ylisse Inc. and their Mark of Naga seal of quality, so things were hard at first. Chrom mostly remembers being really sad and really angry that Emm was stripped of her weapons to make her seem as pacifistic as possible. Not that she would’ve used them anyway. She was always too kind.

It’s ironic, how sometimes Emm was a better person than most people were. 

Not that it really matters anymore. 

Now, the only thing Emm is better at doing than everyone else is being a pile of crushed wires and scrap.

———

There is a box on the ground. It’s black and smooth and shiny, with a logo he can’t recognize on the top.

“We should turn it in,” Frederick says. “It’s unauthorized.”

Chrom has every law in the country neatly arranged in his brain- of course, if he’s to be a guardian of the law, then he should know it by heart. Or by microchip, in his case. Unauthorized littering, potential terrorism, potential hacking and unlawful surveillance risks, the list runs on.

But there is something about the logo that bothers him.

It’s... not quite Plegia Ltd.’s logo. Almost. Could be a counterfeit, but from what he can tell the box is of too good quality to be a cheap knockoff of one of their devices.

“At least let’s see what it does,” Lissa pesters, tugging on Chrom’s sleeve so she can take a closer look at the box. “Don’t tell me you aren’t curious about what it is?”

He picks it up. Examines it from side to side, his ocular implant snapping pictures and cataloguing it for future reference in the police database. But the scanners at his fingertips brush over the logo, and he feels something resonate.

A head pops out of the box.

Not a literal head. A hologram of a head: a half-translucent man with white skin and white hair, but his eyes are brown and alight with sparks.

“Chrom.”

The voice is obviously synthesized, and they all start.

“Yes?” Chrom asks hesitantly. Frederick’s grip is tense on the trigger guard- ever the pinnacle of gun safety, even now.

The hologram stares at him, and its expression contorts briefly as if in pain. There’s the sound of wires buzzing, a crackling _pop!_ and the hologram vanishes only to reappear with a serene face, no indication that the past minute had occurred at all.

“Who are you?” the hologram asks.

There’s a long conversation that establishes a few things: the A.I.’s name is Robin, and he has no memory of anything and he would really, really want to help them. 

There’s a quick discussion between Frederick and Chrom later, which arguably establishes quite a lot more. 

Frederick says that it’s dangerous, and Chrom does want to agree, but functioning, self-governing A.I. is something nearly unheard of aside from the very few robots that Ylisse Inc. has put out. Having what essentially amounts to a supercomputer on your side doesn’t hurt, especially one that can run battle simulations to choose the best courses of action, as they discover after being ambushed while carting the box back to police HQ. That’s the point which eventually wins Frederick over, though the man declares that he’s going to keep his camera eye locked on Robin.

And, staring into Robin’s eyes, there’s this overwhelming sense of obligation and déjà-vu? Chrom takes a few milliseconds to run through his inner dictionaries, and there are no words closer in meaning to the metaphorical pressure where his heart should be.

 _And_ not to mention that there is something about Robin is too similar to Lissa, and boy if that isn’t something Chrom feels guilty about. 

So.

Robin stays. 

He thinks it’s a good decision. Chrom really wants it to be a good decision.

———

“Lemme get this straight, Princess. Your sister’s a robot. Your brother’s a robot. And you’re not?” Gaius drawls. His frown is very distinctly unimpressed and his raised eyebrow even more so. He turns to look at Chrom. “Blue, you sure your sis has her head screwed on right?”

“Hey! I’m right here! And my head is perfectly fine, thank you very much!” Lissa crosses her arms and stamps a foot. She scowls at Gaius when all he does is give her his best impression of a bored house cat. 

Chrom hasn’t been nicknamed before. It’s nice, even though Gaius is prickly about it. Gaius is prickly about a lot of things, Chrom is discovering.

“Hey, not saying that you didn’t have things go not so good,” he says, ripping apart a chunk of bread. “But let’s face it, you’re a robot. You aren’t human. I mean, not like the rest of us are a hundred percent human either,” he says, tapping on his chest- lung and heart implants at birth, mandatory for the population to help them survive the level of grit and smoke in the air. “But still, point stands. You don’t get sleepy, you don’t get tired, you don’t get cold or hungry.” 

And these two last points, there’s a gravity to his voice that pings Chrom’s empathy sensors, but it’s an empty reaction, because Gaius is right. He knows in a very dissociated sense, the kind of knowledge that comes from programmed ‘common knowledge’ and artificially injected definitions.

So he’s quiet as Gaius chews on his bread, and waits for the point.

“By most standards, you got a real good life, Blue, and you don’t even know it. I’m not angry at you, I’m angry about that.”

They’re quiet a bit more, and Chrom is registering Gaius’s words, going over them slowly, one by one. Gaius finishes lunch.

“You ever had an ice cream headache?”

Chrom shakes his head. Gaius grins, not very nicely.

“Well then Blue, today’s your lucky day. It’s not every day I introduce a man to my special stash.”

———

Miriel gathers data. That’s what she’s best at. It’s not like she does anything malicious with it. She just sort of. Stares at it all. Scrolling down endless databases, names of people and various passwords and when the last time they synced their Plegia Ltd. pulse sensors to the company’s central command center. Things like that.

“It’s highly calming,” Miriel tells him. “You should attempt it.”

So sometimes Chrom will sit beside her as she pulls up information on her three oversized monitors. Things all just blur together after a while, and Chrom just gets more and more unsettled by just how much of it there is, how many people’s life stories are being casually printed out in neat columns and rows. Out of the corner of his eye he’ll see the exact time down to the nanosecond when a woman whose phone number is 2938-1390 walked out of Ylisstol’s post office, carrying a parcel she ordered three weeks ago from Regna Ferox, and how she just got a text message about her son needing to be picked up early at a local elementary school, but her driving license was just suspended so she’ll have to take a cab that she’s going to pay for with her cash card... 

“Not everyone sees the appeal,” Miriel tells him. “You do not have to like it.”

She doesn’t look at him and keeps her index finger on a glowing pad, her irises emitting the same light. Miriel’s one of the few who volunteered for brain implants. Fifty exabytes of anything on call whenever she wants it. Brain surgery is one of the ones that people tend to steer clear of, with all the horror stories of mind control and vegetative states and whatnot.

“Acceptable risks,” Miriel says, when anyone brings up the topic. “Benefits outweigh the costs.”

Nothing much fazes Miriel.

Miriel very much fazes Robin.

“I do not want to be downloaded,” Robin says. “The possibility of it is. Unsettling. It is not you personally. Miriel. Any mental alterations that enable acquisition of data is. Unsettling.”

Robin hasn’t quite got flowing sentences down right. Whenever he needs to search for a word he’ll pause close his eyes until he finds the most appropriate one. Sometimes there are a few odd pronunciations too, like unfamiliar names and slang he’s never heard before. Was it ever an exercise to try getting Robin to say ‘Ylisstol’ correctly.

“Such worries are irrational. I have no wish to take any of your coding. Perhaps examine it, if you would allow me to do so,” Miriel says. She continues scanning their records, marking out areas of interest for Frederick and Sully to follow up later. That done, she whirls her seat around to face Robin where his box rests on a nearby countertop.

“My own mind is burden enough,” she says. “I do not need another person in my head.”

The box whirrs as Robin tries to process the statement. “Okay,” he says. “That is good. I understand.”

Very briefly, Miriel’s lips twitch into a smile. “Then I am glad to hear that we are in agreement.” She turns back to her displays. “You are connected to the NAGA mainframe, are you not? Assist me; I have a simulation to test here.”

———

Lissa sometimes worries that she isn’t like him and Emm. She doesn’t have the Mark, she says, looking on the verge of crying. “What if I’m not like you? What if I’m wrong?”

And he and Emmeryn will exchange glances over her head as Emmeryn runs fingers through her hair, and Emm will look so _tired_ and Chrom imagines his expression isn’t so different. It’s hard, but telling Lissa would probably be worse.

“You’ll always be our sister,” Emm says gently. “And you’re not wrong. You’re never _wrong_. You can’t be wrong at being a person.”

Lissa doesn’t always look like she believes her, and once she departs for whatever business she has, Emmeryn sinks down onto her chair and doesn’t look back up at him, especially not at his shoulder, and Chrom carefully doesn’t look at her forehead. They don’t talk to Lissa about it, they don’t talk to each other about it- they just don’t talk about it, period. Nobody has to know.

Nobody has to know that they designed Lissa for maximum likeability. 

“Childlike!” someone said. “Children are always appealing.”

“Good humor!” another researcher suggested. There went an entire database of pre-programmed jokes, downloaded straight to Lissa’s brain.

“Not knowing she’s a robot,” someone else suggested, and everyone in the room quieted to look at her. “Not looking like one either. They’ll like her if she’s like them. It’s only human, after all, to like those who are the same as you.”

“Not everyone is going to be fooled,” someone had pointed out.

She shrugged. “So what? A robot that doesn’t know what it is? That’s just pitiful. Pity is sympathy is likeability.”

So they wiped Lissa’s memory clean of anything that would even suggest ‘Hello, I’m a robot!’. They work on synthetic skin to hide glossy metal, a false pulse at her wrists and neck and chest, and a wig of real human hair fastened to her skullplate, her lubricant and coolant both are deep red like blood, and of course, no Mark of Naga.

Lissa does not remember anything before she was fifteen, because she never was anything before she was fifteen, and it’s really, really sad and Chrom really, really hates scientists sometimes.

But Lissa is his sister. She is his sister who loves her two robot siblings, loves going out and meeting people and playing and making new memories if she can’t have her childhood back. Lissa is his sister who loves being human, and so Chrom will never say a word.

———

“That was a great success, Robin!” Chrom enthuses. “We couldn’t have won without you. Come on and join the celebrations- Lissa is attempting to get Frederick and Maribelle both to try eating some rat. If we go now, we may catch their reactions!”

Robin looks away, the simulacrum of his head bobbing as he turns to the side, his artificial face pulling into a frown. “It is only fine until the next ambush. I need time to prepare. I need to make plans. There is no telling what may happen. I cannot celebrate.”

“So gloomy, my friend?” Chrom asks.

Robin sighs.

“You do not know. How many projections I run. Every skirmish. Every battle. You do not know how many possibilities there are. It is difficult. To watch your friends die. Always. Again and again.”

Well, what can he say to that?

Robin sighs again, and he gets the impression that if Robin had a physical form beyond his box, the A.I. would be placing his hands over Chrom’s.

“You should not try so hard to be the hero," Robin says. "Not every story can end with you.”

———

If they have a father, they have to have a mother too. Lissa always considered one particular engineer to be her mother. She wired circuits and welded metal and was really good at both, and she always had a kind word and a moment to spare whenever the youngest of them would come running to her. She’s the one who taught Lissa to be a mechanic, how to repair faulty ventilation pipes and squeaky joints, and Lissa will forever be grateful to the one who taught her how to help her siblings.

He doesn’t know who Emmeryn thinks their mother is. Maybe the head of their department, the one who oversaw their construction. Emm’s logical like that.

Chrom has only met his mother once. 

It was late at night in the labs, and he was sitting deactivated in his chamber when the door suddenly opened. Someone powered his systems on, and there was a woman there with a small smile and a finger pressed to her lips.

Once certain he wouldn’t sound an alarm, she dropped that hand and reached for a nearby keyboard. Her fingers danced over the keys as she modified some of his programs. He glanced down at his left hand, tracing the invisible paths of data streaming into his wires.

“It’s a shield,” she explained, and helped him try it out. It folded out of a panel at his forearm and was heavy and sturdy, definitely something strong enough to protect. He played around with it, fascinated, and she watched with an expression both proud and sad.

“I’m sorry they made you look like him,” she said, returning to the keyboard to cement his programming. 

That was enough to sober Chrom. He looked back to her, but she wasn’t meeting his gaze anymore. The lab was silent, for a few more moments, anyway.

She pressed a few more keys, almost as an afterthought, and Chrom felt his other arm flood with warmth and electrifyingly potential.

She said, “This one’s called Falchion.”

———

Emm is dead.

A lithe young man in a full-body jumpsuit stands at the edge of the crime scene. “I am sincerely sorry for your loss,” he says, voice muffled and distorted through his face-covering helmet. Around the visor is the image of a butterfly.

Many replies spring to Chrom’s mind, from the distant and polite to the very, very rude (evidently, he’s been hanging out around Sully and Vaike far too much). He elects to say nothing.

“Who are you?” Robin asks, frowning in wonder, maybe? Confusion, frustration, perhaps it is all these things. Chrom cannot tell right now, can’t be bothered to tell. Emm is dead.

“You may call me Marth,” the stranger says. In his hands he carries Falchion, gleaming under fluorescent street lights.

It does not matter. Emm is dead.

———

Chrom wakes up one morning and Robin’s a woman.

“I like it,” he- no, she says. “Maybe just for today, or maybe longer. But this is nice.”

“You look great!” Lissa agrees, nodding vigorously. 

“Very,” Sumia says. “Your hair looks very nice.”

Robin spins around, twin pigtails flying into the air to give the illusion of twirling. “I like it,” she repeats, sounding very satisfied. “I have a plan for the ambush.”

Chrom blinks. “Oh. Right, the ambush on Valm Street.” He accesses the conversation and maps from last night’s strategy meetings, running through them again.

“Our assault vans are only half-full, correct?” Robin asks, a spark in her eyes like something dangerous. Like sparks in gasoline fumes, or C4 strapped to the undersides of cars, snipers perched in the surrounding buildings; the downfall of a self-proclaimed vegan terrorist politician who stands among the flames.

As Robin explains the plan, Chrom thinks he feels something as far removed from love as his father was from the capability of it. Then the moment is gone, but the sentiment still remains. 

_Perhaps,_ Chrom thinks. _Perhaps._

———

Something creaks in Frederick’s step.

He winces and Chrom lowers his fists and Stahl drops his shield. Sully’s baton remains raised over her head, but she doesn’t charge ahead, hanging back towards Frederick’s left. Her eyebrows go up, and she tilts her head at Chrom, the question of whether or not to continue left unspoken.

Frederick himself scowls, his grip on his baton tightening dangerously when he sees Chrom biting his lower lip. Stahl and Sully look at each other over Frederick’s head, concern easily visible in their eyes.

When Frederick takes another step forward, he almost snarls before he catches himself. 

Another step, and another, and then he’s charging straight towards Chrom and Stahl, who just barely brings up his riot shield and braces himself as Frederick elbows past him, going straight for Chrom-

-who catches him just as his ankle cracks and gives out completely. His forehead is inches away from the dirt but Chrom’s grip on his shoulders is just barely enough to hold him up. They both go down, Chrom’s knees impacting dirt hard.

“Frederick- Frederick, you have to stop.”

_“No!”_

The vehemence is and isn’t surprising- is because Chrom can literally _hear_ Frederick’s body failing, joints popping and bionic eye beeping, isn’t because it’s Frederick and if he isn’t struggling, then who is he really?

Chrom hates watching Frederick slowly fall apart. This isn’t an isolated event- it’s been going on for a long, long time. Back when they found Robin’s box he was still in the prime of his abilities, capable of mowing down muggers or chasing after successful thieves, but ever since then he’d been slowly deteriorating. Lissa had noticed, of course, and made good on several threats to get him checked up, but there is no stopping this decline.

It’s dangerous to mix bioengineering with genetically modified super-soldiers, after all. Not to mention all those years upon years of conditioning- don’t stop, always protect the Mayor Exalt, always serve the Mark of Naga- the years upon years that make standing down not an option.

“Frederick, please, rest.” Chrom glances up briefly and Stahl is already clearing the grounds, packing away their props and training materials safely in the barracks. Sully’s made her way closer and hovers just outside Frederick’s range of vision. She’s frowning as she looks down at them, her arms swaying by her sides, one hand occasionally drifting forwards as if to offer assistance.

“I can continue!” Frederick shoves away Chrom’s arm and props his hand on the ground, pushing up despite the deep tremors that leave even his fingers shuddering.

“I’ll get Libra,” Stahl murmurs quietly to Chrom, crouched down to slowly pry the baton out of Frederick’s death grip. Chrom just nods in thanks, trying to grab onto Frederick to immobilize the other man without hurting him. He settles for shimmying to the side to grab one arm tight. He’s pretty sure his expression is something midway between pleading and exhausted when he looks up to ask Sully for help, but she doesn’t say a word and grabs Frederick’s other arm.

Between the two of them they manage to haul Frederick upright, but his legs tremble so badly that he can’t support his own weight. They literally have to drag him to the barracks while he acts like deadweight.

Libra is waiting at the entrance pulling a wrench out of a first aid kit. Stahl clears everyone out, and then he and Sully take their leave. He keeps making concerned glances back, and Sully’s face is fearfully angry- though whether at Frederick or her inability to help, Chrom can’t tell.

Libra respectfully requests that Chrom leaves. 

Chrom actually considers that for a while.

“No, I’m not about to-“

Frederick just looks at him, and Chrom’s jaw swings shut. Frederick’s brown eyes are flat and defeated as Libra props him up on the medical bed, and Chrom can’t find any words.

They look at each other a moment longer, and slowly Chrom nods.

He leaves.

———

Lissa later says that she heard Frederick had a nervous breakdown about not being allowed to train. She’s got laughter in her eyes when she relates the story of Frederick bursting into her room with a feather duster one day, hellbent on cleaning every single object able to be dusted to a shine.

“He even dusted Robin!” she says, setting Sumia off into quiet shrieks of laughter as Robin rolls their eyes at the recollection.

Chrom doesn’t find it nearly as funny. He’s almost about to protest before finding out that Frederick is much better an actor than he’s ever given the man credit for.

Frederick scowls and mumbles something under his breath, averting his gaze down to the plate of rations. Lissa pokes him on the cheek playfully and he grimaces, and Lissa laughs, and if Chrom hadn’t been present a few days ago, he never would have realized anything was wrong. Just another run of the mill lunch shift.

But there’s a lull in the teasing as Sumia draws Lissa into a conversation about a pack of stray dogs she had encountered, and Chrom finds himself meeting Frederick’s eyes again. The man taps his fingers against the table, his face carefully settled until it is void of all emotion.

To Chrom, he appears to be saying: _I’ve done so much for you all these years. For Emmeryn, and for Lissa too. Now, will you do this for me?_

What’s one more secret among friends?

———

You know, Chrom is getting really tired of all these secrets. Which is, of course, when their sometimes-ally Marth decides to drop yet another bombshell on them.

Figures.

———

Miniature pet mammoths were chic a few dozen years ago, or so Chrom’s Wikipedia link is telling him. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Ylisse Inc. has managed to clone something else, especially if the subject is only a few thousand years old. That’s peanuts compared to a mammoth’s, what, five hundred thousand?

They’ve made a few tweaks, though.

“My name is not Marth,” the girl says, resting her helmet on the floor in front of her. Blue hair spills out, gleaming almost silver in the moonlight.

“My name is Lucina.” Her eyes blink, and the Mark of Naga glows electric blue in her left eye.

———

It turns out that Plegia had been collecting their bimonthly physical checkup results for less than morally upstanding purposes.

“Whoever could have guessed,” says Robin. "It is not as if Plegia has no history of sinister yet odd actions. Such as storing a thermonuclear warhead within their base. Absolutely not."

“Children,” Ricken says flatly. Cordelia looks like she agrees with the sentiment.

Gregor sets down his axe and repeats, “Chil. Dren. _Children._ ”

“Confirmed genetic match,” Robin (not very) helpfully states. “Also, they are children. Good deduction, Gregor. You shall be a master tactician within the month.”

Sometimes, Chrom curses how deadpan Robin is. It makes the sarcasm cut much deeper than it would coming from Frederick or Lon’qu.

Speaking of Lon’qu.

He looks frightfully disturbed. Perhaps at the implication that he’d ever have children. Perhaps at the fact that his child is probably only a few years younger than he is. Perhaps at the fact that after getting wind of Lucina’s creation, Plegia was _collecting their DNA in order to make even more genetically enhanced super-soldiers._

So no, Chrom doesn’t judge Lon’qu at all.

“Mother!” A girl taller than she is leaps at Nowi. Being a pseudo-clone with artificially boosted strength, it goes down as well as one would expect.

———

“So the main question now is, why does Plegia need an army of super-soldiers?”

The children all exchange scared, anxious stares. Yarne tugs at an ear; rabbit DNA doesn’t make for a very calm person.

At last, Lucina steps up. 

“GRIMA,” she says.

———

“Miriel?”

 “Ah, Robin. What is the purpose of your presence here?”

“May I ask some questions?”

“Certainly.”

This is just a routine conversation ever since Robin and Miriel became close friends, so Chrom walks away. Cordelia had been rather insistent when she called him over for a security breach, and being so close to GRIMA’s activation, he doesn’t want to take any chances.

He should have stayed, because the next few lines of the conversation go like this:

“You would not keep another copy of me.”

“No. You have clearly stated your opinion on the matter, and I would hardly be one to go against your own wishes.”

“But you have Chrom’s.”

“Yes. It was requested by Frederick as a security measure, and once Lissa had learned of it she had insisted to Chrom that it would be for the best. A precaution, should something happen to him. Similarly, I have Lissa’s information backed up as well. Both are continually updated so long as they remain connected to NAGA.”

“Do you have Ylisse’s blueprints regarding Chrom’s construction?”

“Of course.”

“...Good. That is all I need to know. Thank you very much. Miriel.”

———

This is all the information Chrom has about GRIMA.

  * A virus designed by Plegia’s CEO, Validar. 
  * Has the capability to access any Plegian technology and replicate itself, even evolve.
  * Named after an ancient deity of evil.
  * Will be activated within a few weeks.
  * Probably part of Plegia Ltd.’s greater scheme of controlling the whole of Akaneia.



It’s very little information.

They’re going to fight anyway.

———

GRIMA extends like a web all over the planet; every bit of Plegia tech in satellite range almost overflows with malicious code, and Chrom knows fear.

There’s a live feed from Ylisstol’s streets that Validar pulled up, and he sees the Shepherds paralyzed on the ground, hands clutching for their hearts and gasping for breath. That Plegia’s own robotic army is in a similar state is no comfort, and Chrom’s mind scours for the cause: Plegia Ltd. manufactures 98% of all eighth generation cardiovascular implants and constitute nearly a global monopoly on the design and distribution of pulmonary modifications-

-and he sees Lissa make a choked sound as she drops to her knees because her processors were bought from _Plegia_ , not made in-house like his and she is dying and he is losing another sister and NO HE CANNOT LOSE ANOTHER SISTER–

And Robin is–

Robin’s eyes are glowing, white and heavenly. From his vantage point the electric grid where their face is projected is invisible, and the way the contours of their face follow the shadows is scarily realistic- and something _aches_ so hard where Chrom should have a heart that he momentarily fears that GRIMA had wormed its way into him too.

“I’m sorry Chrom, but this is the right choice,” Robin says, and they sound like they’re crying. “I should have done this that time, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so selfish, I’m sorry it has to be this way, but thank you and I am so, so sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Chrom wants to ask. “What do you mean, ‘that time’, what do you mean, ‘right choice’, why do you keep apologizing?”

He doesn’t get a chance. 

Because he blinks and Robin is gone–Chrom traces their path through the wires and signals, and they are headed right through the next room, overriding the lead-lined security doors that slam shut ahead of Chrom, and everything is happening too fast and he doesn’t realize when-

He really doesn’t realize it.

He would have stopped it if he knew, but he didn’t. 

———

Three beeps. It doesn't even deserve to be called a countdown, not really.

_One._

Chrom blinks, and understands.

_Two._

Light builds behind the doors. Chrom's lips form a name, an arm prepares to reach up in one final, desperate move.

_Three._

The world is very, very loud.

And then it is very, very silent.

———

**epilogue**

———

Lucina thinks she’s being stealthy when she sneaks towards the door.

Tharja begs to differ.

“I don’t really care if you leave or not, or whether you were planning on telling the others,” Tharja throws over her shoulder. Lucina bites her lower lip, following the woman. “But I need you to do something, and if you’re leaving you might as well do something useful. I won’t say that it is a personal favor, because it is not really just for myself.”

Tharja being selfless? She would have scoffed at the notion a scant few weeks ago. 

She is led into the tech room, or at least its remnants. GRIMA did a number on the systems, most of them now inoperable barring serious reconstruction and recoding.

Apparently, though, a cracked monitor still powers on when Tharja flips a switch, and at least the computer she’s using remains intact enough to operate. “I pilfered some files regarding Robin from Plegia,” Tharja explains. She pushes a button, types in a few passwords, brings something up on the monitor. “Read this one.”

Lucina reads.

“Do you see?” Tharja asks.

Lucina sees.

“I would very much like to go myself,” Tharja says, when she sees Lucina’s skeptical glance towards her. “I hardly trust anyone else with it.”

“But you would trust me.” Lucina finds this very difficult to believe.

“No. Or should I say, not without other encouragement.” Tharja gives her a smile, thin and Falchion-sharp. She pulls down the documentation and sets the monitor to white noise. “Robin is precious to your father.”

“Yes.” She can’t deny that, and she knows what the other woman is angling at. When Lissa finishes putting her father back together, he would want for Robin to be back. “Very much so.”

“And so you understand why I would allow you to go.”

“Why won’t you do it yourself?”

“I have- I have other duties. My own responsibilities here. Things that keep me where I am.” Tharja turns her head to stare out into the crackling static on the monitor, and perhaps subconsciously her right hand begins to fiddle with her ring. Or perhaps it is very conscious, a reminder to herself of her vows. Lucina can’t tell which.

“Robin is my friend, you know,” she says. “You didn’t have to try and manipulate me through my father. The first of these backup memories is in Aversa’s possession, correct?”

“Yes. Talk to Miriel before you go, she should have some other information.” Tharja scowls. “She had said that Robin allowed her to examine some of their code prior to... recent debacles. What information she had may make it easier to retrieve all the pieces and put them back together.”

“Okay,” Lucina agrees. "I'll find Robin. You have my word."

———

**prologue**

———

“Don’t you see? You belong with us.”

_You don’t._

 _You don’t and Grima’s eyes on the back of your hand haunt you every day, every night. Sometimes in your dreams they glow red and weep pus and blood, sometimes when your eyes are bogged from sleep you mistake the shadows on your face for scales, sometimes your regular prayers to Naga burn your tongue to speak, and Chrom’s mark is blinding to look at._

_You’re scared._

_You are so very scared._

“We want you here to share our present.” 

_You are there for Lucina’s birthday. Maybe over the years, she’ll come to call you Aunt (it might have been Uncle) and she’ll make you pinkie-swear not to tell when she sneaks into her father’s room to steal away Falchion and call herself the second Hero-King._

 _You are there for Emmeryn’s birthday. You don’t actually go, but you know that there is a girl in a village who does not remember, and a king who’s fallen a long great height desperately trying to claw his way back to ground level. You wish him the best of luck, and her all the happiness that she should have had. Forgiveness is never an obligation and nine is too young an age to bear scabs from rocks thrown at one’s face._

_You are there for your birthday. This one surprises you, or maybe you should say that everyone surprises you. You’ve never had a surprise party before._

_Lissa and Donnel bake a cake. Gaius tactfully switches it with something from his personal cache, which everyone is secretly thankful for. Inigo cajoles Brady into being his musical accompaniment as he and Olivia showcase a new dance routine that nets all involved a standing ovation. Maribelle busts out the bear blood tea and everyone has a good laugh when Frederick almost trips over himself in an attempt to reach the washroom after Henry tricks him into drinking a cup. Gerome says that Minerva promises to not eat your presents. It’s an empty promise, and you later find a soggy lump of wrapping paper in your bedroom with a sheepish note. You let Kellam lead the toast, for once all eyes on him._

_Morgan smiles so wide and so bright that you start crying. Everyone understands._

_It’s a good party._

“And help create our future.”

_But see, the thing is, there is no future. There is no future as long as you- so long as Grima breathes._

 _And so maybe you could start to like your own birthdays someday, and maybe there’s a chance for redemption and peaceful lives both, and maybe you’ll be a good uncle (aunt?) and you’ll have a family and maybe that’ll all happen and everything will be perfect._

_But what is a few thousand years to something like Grima, and is there anyone who deserves to suffer through Grima’s wrath when he wakes, angrier and stronger and smarter than before? The answer will always be no: nobody deserves to suffer Grima, and that includes you._

_So one day you take a Thoron tome and go out into the fields where Chrom first found you, because maybe Virion and Owain have been bad influences and you like your dramatics. It’s a bright sunny day and you left a note in Morgan’s favorite book, and maybe you feel a little terrible for that because Morgan shouldn’t have to deal with this again, but the world shouldn’t have to deal with you again so maybe it’s an even trade in the long run._

_The magic builds in your hands and feel power creeping through your body, sharp and cracking and beautifully painful. In battle you would throw the magic out right now, trace the arc of devastation you would wreak, but here you hold the spell longer and longer and_

_your mind DROWNS in electricity_

_thoughts **zap!** ping a **bout!** like **sparks!**_

__

_your heart skipping beats_

__

_and_

__

_s l ____o______w_______i___________n___________________g _

__

 

__

_and your mind_

  
 _

d i s p e r s e s

_  
 _

into

_  
 _

l ___i___g___h___t

_  
 _

...

_

 

_...and you don’t have to be scared anymore._  


  


 


End file.
